Snoopy: World's Greatest

She didn't want it. How could she say no? He offered the Snoopy trophy like a peace offering. If she accepted it, did it make it ok what he did? Would it ever be ok again?

A friend of a family member, she doesn't remember a time when he wasn't around. Old, so old to her, in reality maybe forty? Fifty? Who knows. She never asked. It wasn't the important part. He had a beard and seemed so big to her. But she was but a little girl of nine so everyone seemed big. He was friendly and nice and paid attention to her. He told her he had a stereo he wanted her to have. Where should it go in her room? Was there enough space? Let's look?

She wants to look back on her young self and scream "NOOOOO!" He's tricking you. He's trying to get you alone. She looks as if through a window and wants to bang on the glass and warn, oh warn her so badly to just do anything but go in that room. Run outside, go anywhere. Just stay away.

"Young girls shouldn't be alone in a room with a man" is what she is told. It's too late. Violated, she doesn't understand. Why would he be nice and then be mean. Why? It wasn't the only time but it was the worse time. The pool at the motel, the room, the non-existent stereo.

No one tells you. Because no one believes that things exist that can turn on a dime. Forever marked by the betrayal, she can't breathe when she goes to the place where he works. She avoided it for so long. Finally, she goes with a friend for some innocent shopping. It has been 20 years. She walks in. Her heart pounds. She starts sweating. And she remembers his offer of Snoopy.

We aren't supposed to wish people dead. It's unchristian. It's not healthy. And she never did. He was the one man she hated. When she was told of his death, all she could do was say "I'm glad".

A grown woman now, she still feels like a nine year old little girl when she passes the motel with the pool or the place where he worked... or the room... the room that should have been her haven but where she felt pure shame for the first time.

She didn't want Snoopy. She said no.